Cu Chi Tunnels

The Cu Chi tunnels, an hour and a half drive from Ho Chi Minh, were created by the people of Cu Chi originally during the French war but were used a lot during the Vietnam war as well. We went on a tour to see them so were picked up at 8am and set off. Our tour guide, who introduced himself as Mickey, was slightly amusing at times but explained lots about the tunnels in a more serious manner. For example, the longest anyone spent down there was 26 days. These tunnels were pretty small, even I had to crouch a little to fit in them in the largest areas. But I'll get to that. 

On the bus there we made a quick stop off at an arts and craft place which is run by people that have been affected by Agent Orange. They make all sorts like plates, bowls and vases with lots of designs. I noticed a smurf vase which was a little cool. Some of the people scratch out the designs using their feet as they have no hands. People can adapt amazingly when they need to. Unfortunately, the items for sale were far too expensive and I didn't particularly want to carry any of them round with me for the next couple of months. 

At the site of the tunnels we were first all made to sit and watch a video on the people who used the tunnels. There were the Viet Cong who were the Vietnamese soldiers and there were the Guerillas who were the locals that worked in the rice fields or somewhere during the day but fought at night. During the Vietnam war the Americans only found 9km of the tunnels out of the 200 odd that had been dug. The locals were amazing at hiding entrances and air holes. The Americans used German dogs to sniff out the enemy so the Vietnamese distracted the dogs with different scents of fish or uniforms from the American soldiers. Rather clever. We were then shown examples of the traps the locals made using mainly bamboo. They'd create a hole in the ground and place bamboo spikes on various swinging devices in them. A tad brutal but the Americans did worse. Just read up about the My Lai massacre and you'll see. You may also throw up a little though. 

Finally, we got to go inside the tunnels. There was only 120m of tunnel available for us to explore. Anybody could exit the tunnel every 20 metres. Matt got out after 80 metres as he was struggling. Apparently it was his rucksack that was the problem and I should have taken it instead. He's just too tall. Being small is great. I managed the whole length of the tunnel. To start I just needed to bend a little but by the end I was crawling on my hands and knees. It was great! I was amazed that these Vietnamese people had dug all of these tunnels with their bare hands. 

We got back to Ho Chi Minh at about 3 so grabbed a sandwich from a sandwich vendor. You get a baguette with various things. We went for egg in ours but we got some chilli sauce and cucumber with it. Not bad for 15,000 dong. As we'd seen most of the sites yesterday we decided to walk by the river for a bit. It wasn't that nice. But we did walk past the Bitexco tower which has a viewing platform. Unfortunately it cost a lot to go up so we just stared at it from below. 

We made our way back to the market to have a last look around before getting food for tea. Whilst checking in our guide book the girl we met in Hanoi walked over to us and so I invited her to come for food with us. After tea Matt returned to the hostel but me and the girl, Hannah, went for a few drinks. We started off in a bar with a camper van where we got a mojito before attempting to find a busier area for our next beverage. It took us a while but we eventually found the 'backpackers street' which was full of bars opening out onto the street. People filled the area making it look super lively and fun. It was a great place to people watch but was definitely full of westerners which ruined it a little. However, another couple of drinks whilst chatting to someone new was just what I needed. I went to bed content.